Trojan Women Make Israel Anti-War Pleas in Three Tongues

A chorus of Israeli actresses in Japanese director Yukio Ninagawa’s version of the Euripedes play, "Trojan Women." The cast of Palestinians, Japanese and Israeli performers each speaks in their native tongue. The anti-war message stresses the need to listen and understand one another. Source: Cameri Theatre of Tel Aviv via Bloomberg

Jan. 11 (Bloomberg) -- “Trojan Women” on the Tel Aviv stage
is a cosmopolitan production of an anti-war tale.

The ancient Greek tragedy is told in Arabic, Japanese and
Hebrew. The audience needs the translations provided on screens.
The actors just comprehend each other’s expressions and
suffering, a message with resonance in today’s Middle East.

“The only place where there is any dialogue between
Israelis and Palestinians is on the stage of Cameri,” said the
Tel Aviv theater’s artistic director Omri Nitzan.

“Our Kissinger is the world renowned Japanese director
Yukio Ninagawa,” he said, referring to the former U.S. Secretary
of State who carried out Middle East shuttle diplomacy in the
1970s.

Cassandra, Israeli Ola Shur-Selektor, comes onto the stage
holding two torches, imploring her mother Hecuba, Japanese
actress Kayoko Shiraishi to rejoice, not cry, over her forced
marriage to Greek victor Agamemnon. Later, Hecuba weeps as she
watches her daughter-in-law Andromache, played by Palestinian
actress Rawda Suleiman, plead for the life of her grandson.

“Sorrow and grief and war are the same in any language, and
in any culture ‘war is no good,’” said Shor-Selektor. “Even
though we speak our own language, we understand each other.”

“Trojan Women,” based on a series of myths, was the
reaction of playwright Euripides to conquests, acts of slaughter
and abuse of prisoners in ancient Greece.

Election Issues

Israeli national elections are being held on Jan. 22. The
issue of stalled talks with the Palestinians over their bid for
an independent state to end years of conflict, has taken a back
seat to socio-economic questions and the security threat posed
by Iran’s nuclear program.

Israel and the Palestinian leaders haven’t held direct
talks since Sept. 2010, when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
refused to extend a 10-month building freeze in the West Bank
settlements and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas declined to
negotiate unless all construction was halted.

“It is a sad fact that this is a Greek play from before the
time of Christ, and today nothing is different,” Ninagawa said.
“This play is the natural result of watching news on television,
reading newspapers and realizing that we have to do all we can
to understand others.”

Understanding others was Ninagawa’s motivation for casting
women speaking three different languages in the main roles. The
15-member chorus, in groups of five, recite each line from the
original Euripides play in their native tongue in turn,
stretching the performance to 2.5 hours.

Listening Process

“There is a very small hope that with the same line spoken
three times, the audience can’t abandon the effort to listen to
all of them,” said Ninagawa. “The coexistence of the three
languages is a message and you have to go through it.”

It wasn’t a message every member of the audience was open
to hear. Some walked out at intermission. Others complained
about the tedium.

“What Ninagawa did was take three cultures and give them
freedom to live in the same territory -- on the stage -- where
each expressed their culture, mentality, language,” said Nitzan.
“The same words, the same feelings in a different language. The
message was ‘listen, absolutely everything is alike. That is the
irony.’”

Cameri is no stranger to plays with a political message.
“Return to Haifa” is about a Palestinian couple who fled the
city. They return years later to rediscover their home and the
infant they left behind with Jewish neighbors. They find him
serving in the Israeli army. The show upset many people, Nitzan
said.

Understanding Plea

“Our attempt,” he said, “is to understand the other. This
is the key for dialog and dialogue is the basis of theater. One
talks, the other listens and then responds.”

It wasn’t that easy working with the three different
cultures, Ninagawa acknowledged.

“The play is like a drop of tears in the big ocean,” he
said. “You make a play with Arabs, Jewish and Japanese actors.
There can be lots of problems. But the efforts we make to make
theater is a small effort.”

The play, co-produced by the Cameri Theatre in Tel Aviv and
the Tokyo Metropolitan Theatre, debuted in Japan with a set made
of curtains, so it can easily travel.

“Theater is often set in European culture,” Ninagawa said
through a translator, “but here we are from the Middle East and
the Far East working together. I’d like to show this to the
world.”

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